Elazığ is a new city on very old ground. It stands at 1,067 metres in the upper Euphrates basin, and it exists because the old city, Harput, was not fit to live in: the terrain was unsuited to settlement and the conditions were hard, so Reşid Mehmet Paşa founded the present town in 1834. To follow Elazığ's history you have to follow Harput's.
Harput castle, the inner fortress ringed by deep cliffs that forms the core of the old city, is thought to have been first built in the second millennium BC. Settlement later spread down the slopes below it, and the town that grew there was walled in its turn. For all its brilliant past, Harput today looks very nearly abandoned.
Where the name came from is disputed, and the suggestions do not agree. One argument identifies Harput with Karkathiokerta in the region of Sophene mentioned by Strabo of Amaseia, and derives the name from it. It is known that when the Persians took the place in the 4th century it was called Ziata Castellum, which passed into Arabic as Hısnıziyad. Another proposal reads the Karpata found in cuneiform Assyrian tablets as this site.
